Palestinians love to laugh, announcements, reports

1) A friend asked me....Ben J in Jenin 2) I
Punched an Arab in the Face_ Haaretz article 3) Palestinians
love to laugh_Ben J 4) First European meeting of ISM support
networks 5) ISM Announcement - Trainings in December

Ben
J. Jenin

Hi. Things are quiet today, the jaish
{soldiers} have not returned. Today is Friday, the Islamic
Sabbath, so most places are closed and not many people are
out. It's overcast and a bit chilly, sorta dreary outside.
It's a far cry from the searing heat here when I arrived in
September. Apparently winters here don't snow, but it gets
chilly. A very dear long lost friend just got in touch with
me by e-mail and asked what a day in my life is like here.
I have no answer, and for a good reason. That reason is
that as long as I'm here, ridin' with the Palestinians in
Jenin, I can have no routine or predictability about my
daily life. Like them, I can't make serious plans for
tomorrow, let alone next week. Life is simply a series of
externally manifested disruptions and false starts. A
Palestinian can't decide to take a day off, because they
had better make $$ today, as tomorrow could bring a month
long curfew in which he or she will be shot for leaving the
house, straight up. One can't put off the shopping for a
day because there might be yet another Israeli military
incursion, transforming this beautiful city into a surreal
ghost town, with no one on the streets for fear of death.
And people do die for walking thru their own streets during
curfew, believe it.

So, I have no daily routine, no
typical day. Since the crushing curfews of September and
October ended {90% of days were curfew}, it's very hit or
miss. About half the time I am awoken by tanks and gunfire
in the middle of the night, the rest of the time its quiet.
A lot of the time people are afraid to leave their houses,
the rest of the time you see what a beautiful community
this is. Several times a week the Israelis come into town
and kill people, the rest of the days they don't. Often we
go to villages because the Israelis have invaded it and are
terrorizing the folks, often we don't.

There is as
complete lack of continuity for the folks here, never
knowing what's coming, or why. So as long as I'm here it's
like that for me too. It's a really cruel thing, and goes
on for months, years and decades. I don't know anything
about that. In these months I've gotten just a small taste,
but it's changed me and I'll never forget it. So you can
imagine how it affects these folks.

On a quiet day I
come here to do an update for ya'all, or walk around town
chatting, eating. Occasionally I read a book or do laundry.
I sit alone a lot and stare into space when I'm not busy, to
be honest. I smoke 2 packs a day, as does everyone else
here. I go up to the roof of our building and do pushups,
and look for signs of invasion, such as tanks etc. I
think about goin' home alot, especially lately, and look
forward to it. I also wonder about how hard it'll be to
adjust. People that came for 2 weeks write me, telling me
its hard to adjust.....i've been here almost 3 months. Not
sure what to expect. I like to go joke with my Palestinian
friends around town, shoot the breeze, drink tea, answer
questions about America. I call that "9-11 watch", because
it might prevent another one, not that I'm always sure we
deserve it. Lemme explain that term: most of our
activities here, we call something-watch. So we have curfew
watch, checkpoint watch, stonethrower-watch, whatever.
9-11 watch consists of going around, informally answering
people's questions about America, trying to highlight the
difference between the neo-fascist government and normal
folks like us. People here are very receptive to it, but
often genuinely surprised. They believe me, they often just
didn't know there was dissent in America. Pluggin a leaking
dam with my fingers. They are happy to hear it, and eager
to meet ya'all!!!! Thats 9-11 watch.

It seems that our
government is gonna get us into a huge war with these
folks, all based on a mutual lack of information, our lack
about them and vice versa. I'm gonna have to vote no on
that one!!

And that's kinda what I do hear, when I'm not
knee-deep in an invasion. I hope that more people will
consider coming hear to see the situation for themselves,
and see how much we've been lied to. One needn't come in
the capacity I did, you could just come check it out.

November 21, 2003-- Staff
Sergeant (res.) Liran Ron Furer cannot just routinely get on
with his life anymore. He is haunted by images from his
three years of military service in Gaza and the thought that
this could be a syndrome afflicting everyone who serves at
checkpoints gives him no respite. On the verge of completing
his studies in the design program at the Bezalel Academy of
Art and Design, he decided to drop everything and devote all
his time to the book he wanted to write. The major
publishers he brought it to declined to publish it. The
publisher that finally accepted it (Gevanim) says that the
Steimatzky bookstore chain refuses to distribute it. But
Furer is determined to bring his book to the public's
attention. His book is not easy reading. Written in terse,
fierce prose, in the blunt and coarse language of soldiers,
he reconstructs scenes from the years in which he served in
Gaza (1996-1999), years that, one must remember, were
relatively quiet. He describes how he and his comrades
forced some Palestinians to sing "Elinor" - "It was really
something to see these Arabs singing a Zohar Argov song,
like in a movie"; the emotions the Palestinians aroused in
him - "Sometimes these Arabs really disgust me, especially
those that try to toady up to us - the older ones, who come
to the checkpoint with this smile on their faces"; the
reactions they spurred - "If they really annoy us, we find
away to keep them stuck at the checkpoint for a few hours.
They lose a whole day of work because of it sometimes, but
that's the only way they learn."

He described how they
would order children to clean the checkpoint before
inspection time; how a soldier named Shahar invented a game:
"He checks someone's identity card, and instead of handing
it back to him, just tosses it in the air. He got a kick out
of seeing the Arab have to get out of his car to pick up his
identity card ... It's a game for him and he can pass a
whole shift this way"; how they humiliated a dwarf who came
to the checkpoint every day on his wagon: "They forced him
to have his picture taken on the horse, hit him and degraded
him for a good half hour and let him go only when cars
arrived at the checkpoint.

To read the full report,
please see:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2213.shtml

3)
Palestinians love to laugh November 29, 2003 Ben J.
Jenin

Howdy from Jenin. Another quiet day, HamdAllah
{thanks to God}. Thought I'd take this time to tell you
that Palestinians are hilarious people who love to laugh and
make jokes. That's not something I knew before I came here,
but it's really true.

I'll tell you a joke I heard here
in Jenin. First a little background, you know how
neighboring regions everywhere always have funny mock
rivalries, jokes about each other? Ok, so Nablus is the
biggest city in the West Bank, and they have a funny
rivalry with Jenin. The joke is: Why did the man in
Nablus take a glass of water AND an empty glass to bed with
him? Because he thought, "Maybe I will become thirsty in
the night, but maybe I will not." Then there's another one,
slightly tasteless but all in good fun. "Do you know how to
save a drowning Nablus man?" Of course you answer no, and
the teller says "Good!"

But everywhere you in Jenin
people are laughing and joking, unless there's something
particularly bad happening. I have made friends with these
cabbies who work out of a cab station by our apartment; I
swear to God you could make a TV show about these guys, they
are so hilarious, makin fun of each other and various
politicians. For my benefit they always include
impersonations of various American celebrities and
politicos, Arnold is a favorite, as is Bill Clinton {guess
what the jokes about him are?}. They also like obesity
oriented jokes about Sharon, and jokes about Bush being
clueless and confused. They save the best for Arafat
though, with a lot non PC references to his shakiness from
Parkinson's and the fact that nobody knows where he's from,
he just kinda appeared, which is bizarre but true. Most of
the jokes are at each other's expense, they even do the
classic thing me and my brother did, where when someone
says something you repeat it in tone, but in a whiny
nonsense form.

Ok, sorry, just got a phone call, sorry, I
gotta go, you'll have to take my word for it, Palestinians
like to laugh.

Struggle, Ben, Jenin

**Call to
generate interest and discussion

The International
Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led movement of
Palestinian and International activists working to raise
awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom and to end
the Israeli occupation. We utilize nonviolent, direct-action
methods of resistance to confront and challenge illegal
Israeli occupation forces and policies. The first ISM
campaign was held in August of 2001 in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories, and was followed by several
nonviolent, direct-action campaigns to date, in which people
from all over the world traveled to Palestine to stand with
the Palestinian people in their resistance to occupation and
oppression and in their struggle for freedom.

Over the
past 2 ½ years the challenges to ISM's efforts have grown
tremendously, as have the attacks on the International
Solidarity Movement, on individual activists, as well as on
the movement as a whole. Whereas it is apparent that the
occupation is not ending anytime soon and the ISM is
determined to continue its mobilizing against the
occupation, much more support from groups all over the world
for the Palestinian struggle and for the campaigns and
activists in Palestine is needed in order to ensure the
continuity of ISM and the viability of the nonviolent,
direct-action resistance in Palestine.

As a result of
numerous discussions with various ISM support groups in
different countries, an idea to hold a European meeting of
the ISM emerged. This meeting would aim to: • Create an
international ISM network to improve the organization of
actions and increase the level of coordination between ISM
groups outside Palestine. • Discuss how we can better
support ISM Palestine and ensure the continuity of this
movement. • Develop strategies for the ISM networks outside
of Palestine

Escanda, an organization in the north of
Spain (www.escanda.org), is willing to host this meeting,
providing accommodations and food. Proposed date is from the
4th of April (arrival day) till the 10th (departure day),
but this is up for discussion, as are the objectives and the
agenda of the meeting

As you may know the ISM has not
organized a campaign in Palestine for the month of December.
We are taking a month to assess and strategize.
Nevertheless, we know that some of you have already made
plans to join us, and we do thank you. However, we still
cannot accept any volunteers that do not go through our
manditory orientation and training. During the month of
December, scheduled trainings will be limited. We are trying
to organize them based on when volunteers told us they are
scheduled to arrive. Currently we are planning to hold two
orientation & training sessions in December. Each training
session is two days long and you must be present for the
entire time or have made alternate arrangements with us.
Currently the dates set aside for training & orientation in
December are:

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